[CentOS-devel] Broken man pages in vagrant box 1710.01

Mon Dec 11 12:00:32 UTC 2017
aleksander.baranowski <aleksander.baranowski at yahoo.pl>

Hi,

Vagrant boxes by default should be as minimal as possible. Removing docs
are one of most obvious steps to reduce size. I'm using mostly custom
boxes so I didn't notice the change in CentOS default behaviour
regarding man pages :(.

In my use case using some automation platform to make proper provision
of boxes is overkill (reinstalling whole system might be longer than
actual work that this VM will make). So according to my current
knowledge, btw - any suggestions are welcome :), there are two solution
what might work for you:

First one - use packer - but this is probably overkill.
Second one - use vagrant package to make new box from existing one (as
said you might reinstall docs), then use is as production/testing image.
I tried it some time ago (I had to use packer after all).

There is great tutorial about using vagrant packer:
https://scotch.io/tutorials/how-to-create-a-vagrant-base-box-from-an-existing-one

But as you said - both solutions require box rebuild - second make this
rebuild easy.

OFC. The drawback of both solution is that you are responsible for
customization when new CentOS box/release is released (but it's still
quite easy to automate).

Bests,
Alex

On 12/11/2017 01:13 AM, Carlos Rodrigues wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 10:46 PM, Manuel Wolfshant
> <wolfy at nobugconsulting.ro> wrote:
>> I fail to understand why would you need the man pages on a server. I do not
>> install ANY doc ( no man, no /usr/share/doc ) on any server since 2008 and I
>> never ever felt a need for change. You need to read a man page ? Fine!
>> Install it in the client you ssh from. Or read it online from that same
>> client
> 
> Sorry for replying to this message again, but I had delivery disabled
> for this mailing list and didn't get the later messages. Anyway, it
> doesn't really afect my point.
> 
> What you feel is not a problem because one can google for the proper
> information, can be a real annoyance for other people for any number
> of reasons. If you prefer to remove documentation from your installs,
> it's pretty easy to do so just by deleting a couple of directories.
> Not so with going the other way around.
> 
> If we were talking about an installer option defaulting to
> "--excludedocs" but just as easy to uncheck, I'd wouldn't even argue
> with you. But this is a pre-built image with this choice set in stone.
> The "other way around" here amounts to almost a full image rebuild.
> 
> Besides, this change happened from one 7.4 image to the next. I
> rebased one of my test enviroments from 1708.01 and suddenly man pages
> were gone with no quick way to get them back.
> 
> Best regards,
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS-devel mailing list
> CentOS-devel at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-devel
> 

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